Sunday, November 07, 2010

The New York Times recently published an article pointing out some new insights which physicists have discovered regarding the perfection and efficiency of living things.

For example, scientists have learned that the fundamental units of vision, the photoreceptor cells that carpet the retinal tissue of the eye and respond to light, are not just good or great or phabulous at their job. They are not merely exceptionally impressive by the standards of biology, with whatever slop and wiggle room the animate category implies. Photoreceptors operate at the outermost boundary allowed by the laws of physics, which means they are as good as they can be, period. Each one is designed to detect and respond to single photons of light — the smallest possible packages in which light comes wrapped.

Scientists have identified and mathematically anatomized an array of cases where optimization has left its fastidious mark, among them the superb efficiency with which bacterial cells will close in on a food source; the precision response in a fruit fly embryo to contouring molecules that help distinguish tail from head; and the way a shark can find its prey by measuring micro-fluxes of electricity in the water a tremulous millionth of a volt strong — which, as Douglas Fields observed in Scientific American, is like detecting an electrical field generated by a standard AA battery “with one pole dipped in the Long Island Sound and the other pole in waters of Jacksonville, Fla.” In each instance, biophysicists have calculated, the system couldn’t get faster, more sensitive or more efficient without first relocating to an alternate universe with alternate physical constants.

Researchers have shown that an E. coli microbe navigating its way through a chemically chaotic environment and over to food relies on an algorithm of compare-contrast-act, the note-trading taking place between surface receptors on the bacterium’s front and aft. “The reliability of its decision-making is so high,” said Dr. Bialek, “that it couldn’t do much better if it counted every single molecule in its environment.”

As science expands our knowledge of creation, we can only stand in overwhelming awe and love for our infinitely wise Creator.

Sorry, no gods exist. Neither does damnation, although it seems to me you are doing a pretty good job of making your life a hell.

"the chance of anything complex and purposeful arising from a process of random variation and selection is infintensimally small."

So? We're obviously here. People win lotteries--twice? The universe is a big place. Even with infinitesimally small odds, there may be billions of life-bearing planets and life forms.

"Therefore evolutionists have long tried to find mistakes, garbage and inefficiencies in living things in order to make evolution more probable."

I suppose that's one very selective view of all the research that gets done and all the papers that get published. What I see is people identifying problems and working to find the best solutions.

"However, as science advances, the amazing perfection of life on all levels is becoming more clear, as is the fallacy of evolution and atheism."

I see. Amazing perfection of life. Life certainly is amazing. However, it's undeniable that that evolution has occurred and has contributed to the "perfection." Maybe it made the perfect stuff even more perfect.

You've never been able to argue at all that your god was ever necessary for anything. You have only negative arguments and gaps reasoning. It's not impressive by people who actually know what they are talking about, and it's certainly not impressive by you, an expelled nurse wanna-be.

Go back to yelling at homosexuals. You tend to make more sense when you're exposing your bigotry and projecting your own insecurities.

Or--and here is a radical idea--why don't you show you really truly love your god? You love the eye, but that's not love of god. You may love to avoid sausage, but that's not love of god. You love not flipping the light switch on Saturdays, but that's peer pressure and self-discipline, not love of god.

Why don't you ever show love to your daddy, god? Why don't you ever address him and tell him how swell you think he is? Why don't you ever talk about how great it is for you to be his rent boy? Why don't you ever praise him for the great life you have and all your amazing friends and family?

So come on, where's that post of yours titled "My God"? Where's that post of yours that has you talking to him/her/it? Where's that post where you pour your heart out in the awe and love you say you have? Where's that post that shows you know the fear and humility that's commanded of you?

Where is it, JP? Where?

Or do you rather want to wallow in the prison of your self-imposed misery, taking delight in your fantasies that everyone in the world except you is "god damned"?

The probability of life forming through evolution is incalcuably small, therefore obviously that's not what happened. And the more we learn about life, the more apparent that becomes. You are grasping at an atheism of the gaps, and the gaps are closing.

By the way, why are nearly all internet atheists anonymous? Because they are so ashamed of themselves. Here's one who can be identified.

Darwin argued that the imperfection of organisms is proof of evolution. So if oorganism display optimal functioning, that should be an arguement against evolution. Evolution does not predict or require the development of optimal functioning systems. It only requires systems that are incrementally better than what came before. However, IMHO, and intelligent designer would work towards optimization. Another failed Darwinian prediction. This is rellay getting momotonous.

And astronomers have discovered hundreds of worlds orbiting other stars. But none of them can support earthlike life. They are too big and too close to their own suns. They recently thought they found that was sort of earthlike, but it turns out that it wasn't.

About Me

I am an Orthodox Jew and I live in Rockland County, NY.
I was raised as a non-practicing Lutheran by my adopted parents and I converted to Judaism at age 16.
This blog as a rule follows the teachings of the Lithuanian rabbinical seminaries of the 1920s and 1930s. Specifically, I have been very influenced by the recordings and writings of Rabbi Avigdor Miller obm.
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